Microsoft's Xbox One parity clause has caused a lot of confusion - both among the developers it relates to and gamers trying to work out if a title they like will be released on their console.
The Xbox brand has done a lot of good over the years, but their various blunders are pretty wild to look back on in their magnitude.
Ironically number 9 can save them at this point (releasing games on multiple platforms)
By “save them” you mean make more profit for Microsoft. Xbox will still be a dying hardware platform.
You could add the naming scheme for the consoles, it just confuses customers. I know they wanted to avoid traditional numbering bc it would always be lower than their competitor, but this whole 360 then One then Series thing is confusing af. Imagine a Soccer Mom trying to figure this stuff out. I still mistakenly call the Series X the One from time to time on accident.
Don't forget about the Xbox One, Xbox One X and Xbox Series X! Good luck to Soccer moms around the world.
They did that on purpose to confuse and direct attention away from the generational numbering.
MS doesn’t like reminding people that they joined the industry after others had already been involved in gaming.
For instance, they called the xbox “360” to combat PlayStation “3” because they wanted to seem like “more” than “3”, so instead of xbox 2, they opted for xbox 360. Also this had the additional benefit of selling consoles to uninformed parents who might purchase a “360” instead of a “3” by mistake, or because they thought 360 was more than 3. Kind of a disingenuous move.
They have been continuing with their confusing naming patterns for pretty much the same reasons. Frankly, it fits with who and what they are as a brand.
I can understand their reasoning, but whoever came up with that naming scheme should be fired, bad naming schemes have killed consoles (I'm pretty sure it was the major reason for the downfall of the WiiU). They should have had unqiue names like Nintendo and Sega have had for their consoles, far less confusing for the consumer.
@FinalFantasyFanatic "They should have had unqiue names like Nintendo..."
lol, you mean:
NES, SNES
GameBoy, GameBoy Advanced, GameBoy Colour, GameBoy SP
DS, DSi, DSXL
3DS, 3DS XL, New 3DS, New 3DS XL
Wii, Wii U
Switch, Switch OLED
Phil Spencer is the worst that has happened to Xbox.
They built a respectable brand up to Xbox one. Then this guy took over and things became a joke
I didn't like either person, both people damaged their respective brands and produced worse outcomes, but Phil did save the Xbox brand from being retired by Microsoft. Although in hindsight, he should have just let it die, rather than languish in limbo like it is now.
Phil Spencer was also on the team back when 360 was around, alongside Shane Kim, Peter Moore etc. I think the damage that did the most harm was the Don Mattrick "Always Online" console (ahead of its time basically). They handed Sony and Nintendo a free-pass when that was revealed. It went downhill from there. Then the corporate machine went into full swing to try and recover. They have to a degree as a games company for the masses, and less so for the core gamer. Outside USA, the Xbox brand does not sell as well as Japanese based consoles (citation needed).
Want a decision maker. The always online and TV plans was a disaster yes, but they caught up by announcing 1st party games that gamers actually kept the hype going.. until this moron took over and introduced the PC day one release.. e all know where that ended..
I dont think they were ever a respectable brand, not since the beginning, when their goal was never to be involved and share in the gaming space. I think the OG xbox was an exception because MS as a brand was still getting its foot in and so the people behind that were people of the gaming industry.
The 360 was the brand in its prime though, everything went downhill towards the end of that generation. Its staple games like Halo, Forza and Gears are what kept the console relevant and afloat for so long.
Really good video.
I remember the days with RRoD was big news on here, N4G.
Microsoft had it turbulence number of years.
Looking at the success of Sea of Thieves despite being 6 years old, time to release Halo, Forza horizon 4 & 5 on PS5. It'll help their revenue
2 of the 4 games they did already sold really well. So it's definitely going down. Idk about halo or forza but I feel those studios they've bought in the last 5 years, their coming
I found this video painful to watch. Can someone list them out?
Top 10 for me from are:
1. 2013 reveal presentation
2. Bundling Kinect 2 with Xbox One
3. RRoD or why rushing to market with hardware is always a bad idea.
4. Buying studios only to close them.
5. Ads on the Home Screen
6. Letting Halo die.
7. Letting Geard of War die.
8. Every console name
9. Charging for Xbox Live on Xbox 360 when Sony let PS3 players play online for free.
10. Cancelling release of OG Xbox games after the Xbox 360 launched.
Microsoft recently revealed its plans to incorporate Copilot directly into video games, with Minecraft being the first showcased example.
F*** AI
"Hey Copilot, what's a good meme to prove I dislike AI".... https://giphy.com/clips/sou...
Two trillion dollar company that just can't wait to put as many people possible out of work as fast as possible.
It feels like every single thing they do is making gaming worse and destroying the industry.
....you know it takes people to program the AI.... right? It isnt like it is sentient. We haven't reach skynet level of situation or anywhere close to the matrix just yet.
That's next Thursday.
It takes a people to program the AI then that AI is used for who knows how many games eliminating countless jobs which only grows as AI is used for more and more game creation functions.
What you're saying is so ridiculously short sighted and truly larking any kind of understanding and foresight.
Why all the hate? Im actually excited about this! Always wanted this kind of immersion, and an AI companion with me all the time helping me out knowing the status of my skills/inventory/progress and giving me tips on the best approach or how to craft something specific is game changing for the industry.
Hate all you want about AI, but this is just the start and I can see the potential already. You wont be complaining in the next 5-10 years about this, but rather complain if a game hasn’t implemented it.
Yes we can't wait for the work of others to be used without the need to pay them so that MS can profit even more from the people they fire.
There is no chance I'd ever use something like this, especially if it's not part of the core game design, but a layer on top of it. It's way too much handholding. Many games already feel like busy work, because they don't let the player figure things out on their own. Having a real-time interactive guide defeats the purpose of playing the game in the first place in my opinion.
If this were to become the standard like you predict, we'll see more and more video games get away with bad design, because people will just be used to ask for help from the AI companion anyway.
Well Nintendo don't need this with some of their games these days, with invincible characters, items, easy bosses etc.. they do the hand holding built in
Microsoft's Activision subsidiary announced today that it is opening a new game development studio to take advantage of the huge talent pool growing in Poland. It'll be the second Activision studio based in the region, joining Infinity Ward Krakow, although this studio is, in fact, not working on Call of Duty.
"Come talk to us"
Seems straight forward. So far not one game has been turned down by MS for Xbox.
And it's good to see that so many dev kits are in a lot of developer hands. I can only imagine how many more will be added when the Xbox One can be turned into a developer kit, if that hasn't happened already.
Looking forward to see what these guys have in store for the future.
Outlast, Guacamele, shovel Knight and many others are evident of this.
FYI MS has been saying this for bout 1yr and half nice to see it finally got to n4g
The "parity clause" really needs to be abolished. Look at this quote from Phil Spencer, mentioned in the article: "last October, Xbox boss Phil Spencer emphasised that the clause was still present to ensure that Xbox One owners felt "first class".
That really sounds kind of arrogant, doesn't it? I'm not an XBox hater, in fact I still own multiple original XBoxes and 360s, and really love a lot of games that came out on both of those systems. I skipped the XB1 so far this generation, for a number of reasons, including the forced Kinect gimmick and the (since retracted) policies on "always-on DRM" and "no used game sales".
Since MS made those early mistakes, they really are in no place to force devs to release on their console first. They need to buck up, and drop the parity clause, it does them a lot more harm than good.
Usually when the system gets bash articles about devs talking about the parity clause the dev never even attempted to talk to MS. IMO they are either lazy and clearly want a red carpet laid out like they are the ones doing MS the huge the favor by gracing their platform or maybe they give up easily lol or simply dont care because they are content with what they already have. Personally if I was a dev and had a game that could work on more consoles and port with relative ease I would want that on every big platform to open my product to a new market to help increase my chances of success, so wouldnt it be in my best interest to at least try to talk to somebody? Odds are if your game is not Minecraft or one of those buggy sandbox games on PC it is not worth the investment. When a game comes out on previous platforms and has not been the next big thing, it is probably in ID@Xbox best interest to tackle something new not waste time trying to get a game that had okay sales. There are very few games MS should really have tried to get and that is mostly Shovel Knight (maybe Transistor but I dont know how successful that was I just know it was damn good) and some MMOs/F2P games. IMO ID@Xbox would be smart to get new indies, not try and play catch up by getting old games that do okay. If this is the case clearly indies have to get their attention not the other way around. Filling release gaps with old indies is not one bit impressive to current and future owners.
As of now, the parity clause, simply looks like it is turning way devs who dont want to take the platform seriously and see it as a great opportunity at a new community. If that is the case it is kind of doing it job lol
The thing is that when MS was in a favorable situation they didnt exactely make friends. MS systematically went after the smaller developers by using tactics like the parity clause to force the smaller guys to develop for them first or else loose the xbox market. Even if it made sense for the developer to do otherwise. MS also forced smaller developers to have to go through big publishers in order to develop games for xbox. I dont imagine the smaller developers having witnessed MS's endgame are too eager to trust MS fully. And lets not forget that they tried pulling the same type of thing on the consumers at the beginning of this generation. Had it not been for the gamers uniting, we would be looking at a very different hobby today. But then again this is business, so you never know. Its bully tactics, and if you have the money/might sometimes that makes right.